


about rabbits

by bebtea



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ninja kick promises, Post s5m3, both of these characters deserve so much more time, hints at later s5, it’s not graphic but be safe, not really shippy, spoilers to s5m3, they were poly if you squint, we can banter our way out of this right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bebtea/pseuds/bebtea
Summary: Cameo won’t leave without Kytan. But keeping him safe in an occupied Abel may be difficult.
Relationships: Cameo/Kytan/Yang
Kudos: 6





	about rabbits

They know she helped with the escape.

Ian questions her for hours before she’s thrown unceremoniously into one of the storage sheds, bruised and beaten bloody, wrists and ankles bound with rope so that her face slams on the concrete. She feels a tooth chip. _Great._ No dentist these days to fix that one. Kytan’s going to call her hockey mouth for as long as they both still live.

Despite this, there’s a cold triumph on her face when she manages to sit and shuffle back against the wall. All in all, it’s not a bad night. Ian learned nothing. She didn’t split about Steve; the rebels are alive; Jody and Paula and the baby are free. Those secrets are worth a few bruises and broken teeth to keep, she supposes.

Then, she hears the breathing. It’s laboured and rasping and pained and oh _fuck,_ they’ve locked her in with a zombie, and now they’re going to watch her die, and Veronica will probably slice her brain clean through for her experiments and there’s nothing she can do-

“No, no, no,” Cameo Wood doesn’t - hasn’t ever - grovelled, but now of all times it’s worth a shot. All brave parting promises to the Head of Runners off, she blurts: “you don’t want to do this! I haven’t done anything wrong! I know things, I can give you information! Tell Commander Golightly, I’m loyal, I can help-“

“...C-Cameo? ‘S that you?”

“Kytan?”

“Cammie?!”

“Kytan!” She could almost weep from relief to hear her best friend’s voice. “Oh God, I thought I was zom lunch.”

“Do I sound… that bad?” 

He tries to ask it lightly, but he really does, so she ignores the question. _The punishment cells must be full to bursting if we’re sharing_ , is her first thought. Solitary’s usually all part of the routine.

The second comes with an icy shot of terror. _They know why I stayed. They hurt him to hurt me. He put Ky here to hurt me._

“So, what brings you to these parts?”

“Oh, picked a fight with four soldiers out on work detail.”

She can hear the stupid smirk he’s probably pulling. She manages another breath.

“You’re an idiot,” she marvels.

The old overexcited tone trickles back into his voice now he has an audience. “They tried to requisition my trainers! Those super cool ones, that actually fit and have pink lightning bolts down the side, you know? Told one of them he could shove my trainer where the sun don’t shine then, so he threw a punch to the old solar plexus, and wham! That’s a declaration of war right there, my old pal! So then I kicked him in the nose, got the second with a fist to the throat, backflippin’ like a _boss_ , and-“

“They beat you to the ground with those nightsticks and took your shoes anyway?”

“...however did you guess?!”

“People have been strung up for less.” Cameo reminds him, attempting to move closer now that her eyes are growing used to the dark. The storage sheds are only around 6 by 6 foot - Cameo helped build a few back in the day - and the once lithe young man is scrunched over on his side in the corner, hood up, both eyes swollen shut. “ _Holy shit_ , Kytan!”

“You know, as a true ninja, I don’t… I don’t even feel pain. And you don’t sound so hot yourself, Cammie. What happened?”

“May or may not have endured the wrath of big scary Ian Golightly himself.” She’s right beside him now, and manoeuvres herself so that they’re lying broken-nose-to-broken-nose. “Not to mention his terrible fucking breath. But I have a secret that he doesn’t know about.”

“How to tell bees apart from wasps? Because that was a great one you taught me.”

She laughs, and it hurts every bone in her body, and she hides it. “Oh, piss off! I thought we were having a moment here.”

“Your old thing about turning three tin cans and a Blackberry phone into a mini fax machine? Because I _still_ have no idea how that works.”

“Runner Eleven! Let me speak! Don’t tell _anyone,_ but Five and Janine and Sam: they’re alive.I saw Five with my own two eyes. Jody, Paula and Sara escaped last night. They’re building up to take back the township!”

Whatever reaction she expects, it isn’t stunned silence. It certainly isn’t the tear that slips down Kytan’s cheek, so close she can feel it on her own.

“You’re not lying to me, are you, Cameo?

He suddenly sounds even younger than usual, quivering with a barely realised hope.

“I would never lie to you. You’re my best friend.”

Kytan begins to shake with suppressed sobs. All Cameo can do is press her forehead to his. “What’s the matter, Ky? It’s good news! They’re coming back for us any day! Like, it will fucking suck under Commander Gobshitey for a while, but-“

“I’m… happy!” Kytan manages.

“I will never understand you.” Cameo wishes she could hold him, or he could hold her. “Did they catch you on the head with one of those batons?”

He doesn’t have a quick response for once. He goes back to breathing heavy, slow, and she realises he’d been crying when she had arrived. They’ve known each other nearly four years, but she’s never heard him cry before, not even when they finally scattered Yang’s ashes at the lake.

“I just… I’m so relieved they’re not dead. But One... I mean, I don’t… I don’t wish he was here. There’s like, some sort of hellish Middle Ages shit going down. I think Ian’s one petty crime away from putting people in the stocks. But nothing’s been right since Yang went, has it?”

“No.” Cameo feels her own voice wobble. She remembers kisses with One after a brush with death, hard and fast and hot, Kytan whooping and clapping them both on the back, Andrew making fake vomit noises. Never anything serious; it never affected their friendship; Yang was kissing Kytan too. “It hasn’t.”

“I hoped… when you said Runner Five and the rest… I hoped you’d say Yang too.”

“Ky… we, we buried Yang. You laid him to rest. He isn’t coming back.”

Kytan’s expression is unreadable in the near darkness, with the swelling. But it’s somehow disbelieving.

“We always wanted to leave… but we couldn’t. He always says that the township needs us. The symbol of a Runner… means something. You know?”

“Yeah. Means we’re the first to get our heads kicked in during a military coup.”

He snaps out of it with a flash of his old wit. “Hey, I got my head kicked in all by myself.”

He’s right on one count though. The four of them never should have stayed here: they could be far away right now, not bleeding out on a storage room floor, not slaving away on cut rations, not dead in some zom-ridden ditch.

“Once this is over, we’ll never look back. We’ll do it. Set up our little club. I’ll DJ and Andrew will pull the pints and you can teach people judo on the front lawn. No more waiting.”

“No more waiting. Yep.”

“We are going to get out of this alive, Kytan. In the meantime? For the love of everything, just _lie low._ Say whatever you have to say. Give your trainers to whoever wants them. Make friends with safer people than me. I dunno, smile. ” 

Kytan already smiles almost as much as Cameo scowls.

Maybe, she hopes to everything in existence, that will be enough to stop this happening a second time, enough to gain him some favour with their psycho tinpot dictator. Because she’s trying to keep things light, and relieved, and gentle.

But if anyone _ever_ hurts this man again, she will-

“You’re still my best friend, though, right Cammie?”

“Um, always?” The query breaks her out of thoughts of breaking necks. “That’s a freaking ninja promise, to appease the eight year old within you.”

“No lies between us, remember?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Tell me again about the rabbits, George,” Kytan mumbles, almost managing another smirk around his swollen lip.

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll break the rest of your ribs.”

Silence for a moment, before another snort of laughter, followed a tiny cry of pain from both. Then he whispers, “love you.”

“Love you too.” 

She closes her eyes, and lets the darkness swallow them up for a while.


End file.
